Olga Tokarczuk: Where History’s March Is a Funeral Procession
[Olga Tokarczuk is the author of the novel “Primeval and Other Times.” This article was translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones from the Polish.]
IT is hard to come to terms with the deaths of so many people, including the Polish president, from the plane crash last Saturday. And it is hard to believe the uncanny coincidence that the plane went down near the Katyn forest in Russia, the site of the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in 1940. When we heard, everything went quiet. Then people rushed to the Internet and switched on their TVs, because no event, not even the most tragic, exists beyond the media.
The next day, as people began to emerge from church, I received an anonymous text message, sure to have been sent to lots of people, like similar messages announcing candlelight vigils or encouraging people to tie black ribbons to their cars. This message said: “History has come full circle. Mickiewicz’s Poland as the Christ of Nations is returning. Let us be united by this love from God. Let us strengthen the fatherland through brotherhood.”
I felt a shudder of horror that hasn’t really left me to this moment.
Two centuries ago, when our nation lost its sovereignty and was partitioned among Russia, Prussia and Austria, Polish Romantics like the poet and nationalist Adam Mickiewicz declared that independence would come only with great sacrifice. Ever since, this myth of the martyr, or messianic victim, has emerged during times of national crisis. This way of thinking has frequently been exploited by politicians; one famous result was the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis in 1944, which was doomed from the outset and cost 200,000 lives.
Since the president’s crash, the Poles have again united over death....
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IT is hard to come to terms with the deaths of so many people, including the Polish president, from the plane crash last Saturday. And it is hard to believe the uncanny coincidence that the plane went down near the Katyn forest in Russia, the site of the Soviet massacre of Polish officers in 1940. When we heard, everything went quiet. Then people rushed to the Internet and switched on their TVs, because no event, not even the most tragic, exists beyond the media.
The next day, as people began to emerge from church, I received an anonymous text message, sure to have been sent to lots of people, like similar messages announcing candlelight vigils or encouraging people to tie black ribbons to their cars. This message said: “History has come full circle. Mickiewicz’s Poland as the Christ of Nations is returning. Let us be united by this love from God. Let us strengthen the fatherland through brotherhood.”
I felt a shudder of horror that hasn’t really left me to this moment.
Two centuries ago, when our nation lost its sovereignty and was partitioned among Russia, Prussia and Austria, Polish Romantics like the poet and nationalist Adam Mickiewicz declared that independence would come only with great sacrifice. Ever since, this myth of the martyr, or messianic victim, has emerged during times of national crisis. This way of thinking has frequently been exploited by politicians; one famous result was the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis in 1944, which was doomed from the outset and cost 200,000 lives.
Since the president’s crash, the Poles have again united over death....